Uber CPO outlines hotels, Waymo, AV Labs strategy
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- Uber expanded beyond ride-hailing and delivery into hotels (via an Expedia partnership), boat rentals in Europe, and a "shop for me" concierge, with CPO Sachin Kansal calling travel "the third leg of the stool" after rides and eats
- Uber One membership reached 51 million members and now accounts for roughly half of all bookings, with Kansal citing cross-sell between mobility-only and delivery-only users
- Uber Eats has been independently profitable over the last several quarters, no longer leaning on ride-hailing to stay healthy
- Uber wound down its Waymo pilot in Phoenix while scaling to hundreds of cars in Austin and Atlanta, with Kansal calling Waymo "an excellent partner" but also a competitor in many cities
- Uber's AV Labs, a six-month-old business unit, is equipping hundreds of cars with sensors to collect millions of miles of driving data, packaging operational know-how (handling 25 million lost items a year) as a service to AV partners
- Uber is selling data-labeling services to Gen AI companies using its 10-million-earner base, with drivers paid to transcribe audio when not on trips — Kansal explicitly stated no ride-time conversations are recorded
- Uber has no plans for its own buy-now-pay-later product, instead partnering with existing providers, with Kansal saying "we want to make sure that the experts do what the experts do"
Why it matters: With Uber One at 51 million members and Uber Eats independently profitable, Uber now has the financial cushion to fund speculative bets like AV Labs data collection and Gen AI data labeling. But Kansal's explicit refusal to build consumer BNPL or chase the Asian super-app model signals the company is expanding its surface area without abandoning its core ride-hailing economics.
